New app Wallit lets you write all over everything

You’ve no doubt heard of Pinwheel, the new photo-location app from Flickr creator Caterina Fake. The app is a way for users to leave virtual notes around the globe for public, or private groups. A new app called Wallit wants to do it one better: by writing all over the world.

An explanation might be necessary. The newly launched augmented reality app creates virtual “walls” and using your smartphone you can decorate them with notes, graffiti, or photos in real time. “I realized that social networks on the market, including Facebook and Twitter, focused on people and connecting friends,” creator Veysel Berk tells us. “Even Foursquare: it’s [about] location but it’s really to connect people at different locations.”

“Interaction with places is different. [With Wallit] you change the place over time, you create a social experience there. Facebook is a wall for people, this is a wall for place.”

At launch, Wallit (currently available for iOS, coming to Android) has set up more than 700 walls around the globe, and its radar feature is how you find them. You can choose to write all over these digital monuments (like the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge) anonymously or login with Facebook or Twitter.

While it might sound gimmicky, the app has a pleasant UI and is dead simple to navigate. Of course the hurdle it faces (like all of the augmented reality-meet-location apps do) is getting people to use it. Populating an app like this is crucial: if you’re the only person writing all over the world, who cares? You want to see what other people are writing, and more importantly, what your friends are writing.

Wallit is trying to surmount that problem but leverage the anticipated iPad 3 announcement. “Every Apple store in the world has a visual wall right now,” Berk says. “People can post something to the Apple Store Wall, connecting people at Apple Stores in New York or China. These walls create a real time internal social location-based network.” So when the lines start forming, Wallit hopes a community for its platform will as well.